by Anne Carson
Ancash was saying,
there’s a village in the mountains north of Huaraz called Jucu and in Jucu
they believe some strange things.
It’s a volcanic region. Not active now. In ancient times they worshipped
the volcano as a god and even
threw people into it. For sacrifice? asked Geryon whose head had come out
of the blanket.
No not exactly. More like a testing procedure. They were looking for people
from the inside. Wise ones.
Holy men I guess you would say. The word in Quechua is Yazcol Yazcamac it means
the Ones Who Went and Saw and Came Back—
I think the anthropologists say eyewitnesses. These people did exist.
Stories are told of them still.
Eyewitnesses, said Geryon.
Yes. People who saw the inside of the volcano.
And came back.
Yes.
How do they come back?
Wings.
Wings? Yes that’s what they say the Yazcamac return as red people with wings,
all their weaknesses burned away—
and their mortality. What’s wrong Geryon? Geryon was scratching furiously.
Something biting me, he said.
Oh shit I wonder where that blanket’s been. Here—Ancash pulled it off—
give it to me. Probably
parrot ticks those birds are—Hombres! said Herakles bounding up the ladder.
Guess what? We’re going to Huaraz!
Your mother wants to show me the town! Ancash stared dumbly at Herakles
who didn’t notice but
fell onto the cot beside Geryon. We’re going to see the high Andes Geryon!
first thing tomorrow
I’ll get a rental car and we’ll start. Be there by dark she says. Marguerite
is giving your mom the day off
he said turning to Ancash, so we can stay all weekend come back Sunday night—
what do you think?
He grinned at Ancash. Think you’re quite an operator is what I think.
Yeah! Herakles laughed
and flicked Geryon’s blanket. I’m a master of monsters aren’t I?
He grabbed Geryon
and tumbled him back onto the cot. Fuck off Herakles, Geryon’s voice came out
muffled from under Herakles’ arm.
But Herakles jumped up—Have to call the rental place—and rushed down the ladder.
Ancash watched Geryon in silence
as he gathered himself to the edge of the cot and sat slowly upright.
Geryon you’ll have to be careful in Huaraz.
There are people around there still looking for eyewitnesses. If you see someone
checking your shadow
you come get me, okay? He smiled. Okay. Geryon almost smiled.
Ancash paused.
And listen if you’re cold tonight you can sleep with me. With a look he added,
Just sleep. He left.
Geryon sat staring out over the roofs into the darkness. The Pacific at night is red
and gives off a soot of desire.
Every ten meters or so along the seawall Geryon could see small twined couples.
They looked like dolls.
Geryon wished he could envy them but he did not. I have to get out of this place,
he thought. Immortal or not.
He climbed into his sleeping bag and slept until dawn without moving.
XXXVIII. CAR
Click here for original version
Geryon sat in the back seat watching the edge of Herakles’ face.
————
He had dreamed of thorns. A forest of huge blackish-brown thorn trees
where creatures that looked
like young dinosaurs (yet they were strangely lovely) went crashing
through underbrush and tore
their hides which fell behind them in long red strips. He would call
the photograph “Human Valentines.”
Herakles in the front seat rolled down his window to buy a tamale.
They were driving
through downtown Lima. At each traffic light the car was surrounded
by a swarm of children
selling food, cassettes, crucifixes, American dollar bills, and Inca Kola.
Vamos! shouted Herakles
pushing the arms of several children out of the car as Ancash’s mother
shifted gears and shot the car ahead.
Bright smells of tamale filled the car. Ancash sank back to sleep
with his head against
a thick knot of greasy cloth plugging one of the holes in the side of the car.
Got an air-conditioned one!
Herakles had announced with a grin when he returned from the rental place.
Ancash’s mother said nothing,
as was her custom, but motioned him out of the driver’s seat. Then she
took the wheel and off they went.
They drove for hours through the filthy white sludge of Lima suburbs
where houses were bags of cement
piled up to a cardboard roof or automobile tires in a circle with one tire
burning in the middle.
Geryon watched children in spotless uniforms with pointy white collars
emerge from the cardboard houses
and make their way along the edge of the highway laughing jumping holding
their bookbags high. Then Lima ended.
The car was enclosed in a dense fist of fog. They drove on blindly. No sign
of road or sea. The sky got dark.
Just as suddenly fog ended and they came out on an empty plateau where
sheer green walls of sugarcane
rose straight up on both sides of the car. Sugarcane ended. They drove up
and up and up and up
around switchbacks carved out of bare rock higher and higher all afternoon.
Passed one or two other cars
then they were entirely alone as the sky lifted them towards itself.
Ancash was asleep.
His mother did not speak. Herakles was strangely silent. What is he thinking?
Geryon wondered.
Geryon watched prehistoric rocks move past the car and thought about thoughts.
Even when they were lovers
he had never known what Herakles was thinking. Once in a while he would say,
Penny for your thoughts!
and it always turned out to be some odd thing like a bumper sticker or a dish
he’d eaten in a Chinese restaurant years ago.
What Geryon was thinking Herakles never asked. In the space between them
developed a dangerous cloud.
Geryon knew he must not go back into the cloud. Desire is no light thing.
He could see the thorns gleam
with their black stains. Herakles had once told him he had a fantasy
of being made love to in a car
by a man who tied his hands to the door. Perhaps he is thinking of that now,
thought Geryon as he watched
the side of Herakles’ face. The car all of a sudden flew up in the air and crashed
down again onto the road.
Madonna! spat out Ancash’s mother. She shifted gears as they lurched forward.
The road had been getting steadily
rockier during their ascent and now was little more than a dirt path strewn
with boulders. It seemed
that darkness had descended but then the car rounded a curve and the sky
rushed open before them—
bowl of gold where the last moments of sunset were exploding—then another curve
and blackness snuffed out all.
I really could go for a hamburger right now, Herakles announced.
Ancash moaned in his sleep.
Ancash’s mother said nothing. The car passed a small ceme
nt house with no roof.
Then another. Then a huddle
of women squatting on the ground smoking cigarettes in the glare of the moon.
Huaraz, said Geryon.
XXXIX. HUARAZ
Click here for original version
Water boils in Huaraz at seventy degrees centigrade.
————
It is very high. The altitude will set your heart jumping. The town is held in a ring
of bare sandrock mountains
but to the north rises one sudden angular fist of total snow. Andes! cried Herakles
as he entered the dining room.
They had stayed overnight in Huaraz’ Hotel Turístico. The dining room faced north
and was so dark against
the morning light outside they were all momentarily blinded. They sat.
I think we are the only guests
in this hotel, said Geryon looking around the empty tables. Ancash nodded.
No tourism in Peru anymore.
No foreigners? No foreigners, no Peruvians either. Nobody goes north of Lima
these days. Why? said Geryon.
Fear, said Ancash. This coffee tastes weird, said Herakles. Ancash poured coffee
and tasted it then spoke to his mother in Quechua.
She says it’s got blood in it. What do you mean blood? Cow blood, it’s a local recipe. Supposed to
strengthen your heart.
Ancash leaned toward his mother and said something that made her laugh.
But Herakles was gazing out the window.
This light is amazing! he said Looks like TV! Now he was putting on his jacket.
Who wants to go exploring?
Soon they were proceeding up the main street of Huaraz. It rises in sharp relations
of light towards the fist of snow.
Lining both sides of the street are small wooden tables where you can buy Chiclets,
pocket calculators, socks,
round loaves of hot bread, televisions, lengths of leather, Inca Kola, tombstones,
bananas, avocados, aspirin,
soap, AAA batteries, scrub brushes, car headlights, coconuts, American novels,
American dollars. The tables
are manned by women as small and tough as cowboys who wear layers of skirts
and a black fedora. Men wearing
dusty black suits and the fedora stand about in knots for discussion. Children
dressed in blue school uniforms
or track suits and the fedora chase around the tables. There are a few smiles,
many broken teeth, no anger.
Ancash and his mother were speaking Quechua all the time now or else Spanish
with Herakles. Geryon kept
the camera in his hand and spoke little. I am disappearing, he thought
but the photographs were worth it.
A volcano is not a mountain like others. Raising a camera to one’s face has effects
no one can calculate in advance.
XL. PHOTOGRAPHS: ORIGIN OF TIME
Click here for original version
It is a photograph of four people sitting around a table with hands in front of them.
————
The pipe glows on a small clay bowl
in the middle. Beside it a kerosene lamp. Monstrous rectangles flare up the walls.
I will call it “Origin of Time,”
thought Geryon as a terrible coldness came through the room from somewhere.
It was taking him a very long while
to set up the camera. Enormous pools of a moment kept opening around his hands
each time he tried to move them.
Coldness was planing the sides off his vision leaving a narrow canal down which
the shock— Geryon sat
on the floor suddenly. He had never been so stoned in his life. I am too naked,
he thought. This thought seemed profound.
And I want to be in love with someone. This too fell on him deeply. It is all wrong.
Wrongness came like a lone finger
chopping through the room and he ducked. What was that? said one of the others
turning towards him centuries later.
XLI. PHOTOGRAPHS: JEATS
Click here for original version
It is a close-up photograph of Geryon’s left pant leg just below the knee.
————
Resting the camera on the rear window of the car Geryon is watching the road
fall away behind them
into a light so brilliant it feels cold and hot at once. The car hurtles over gravel
and rock traveling
almost vertically on the steep mountain track that leads up to Icchantikas.
Car travel gives some people hemorrhoids.
Each time the car bounces him up and down Geryon utters a little red cry.
No one hears him.
Herakles and Ancash in the front seat are (in English) discussing Yeats which
Ancash pronounces Jeats.
Not Jeats. Yeats, says Herakles. What? Yeats not Jeats. Sounds the same to me.
It’s like the difference between Jell-O and yellow.
Jellow?
Herakles sighs.
English is a bitch, Ancash’s mother announces unexpectedly from the back seat
and that closes it—
Ancash hits the brakes and the car jumps to a halt. Geryon’s hot apple icepicks
all the way up his anus to his spine
as four soldiers appear from nowhere to surround the car. Geryon is focusing
the camera on their guns
when Ancash’s mother slides her left hand over the shutter and gently forces it
out of sight between Geryon’s knees.
XLII. PHOTOGRAPHS: THE MEEK
Click here for original version
It is a photograph of two burros grazing on spiky grass in a stubble field.
————
What is it about burros?
Geryon is thinking. Except burros there is not much to see out the car window
as he and the mother sit
waiting in the back seat. The police have taken Ancash and Herakles down the road
and vanished into a little adobe house.
The burros seek and munch with their long silk ears angled towards the hot sky.
Their necks and knobby knees
make Geryon sad. No not sad, he decides, but what? Ancash’s mother says a few
fast harsh Spanish words
out her side of the car. She seems to be stating her mind boldly today, perhaps
he will do the same.
What is it about burros? he says aloud. Guess they’re waiting to inherit the earth,
she answers him in English
with a little rough laugh that he thinks about all the rest of the day.
XLIII. PHOTOGRAPHS: I AM A BEAST
Click here for original version
